Tagged: army

This past week, my friend JJ made this comic picking at the Canadian relationship with its Crown. It included drawings of two soldiers, and in light of this blog’s recent spotlight on the Canadian Forces, I thought I’d take a look at the uniforms and see what we can learn from them, as a sort of case study.

Here’s the first one.

Let’s start with his rank. From the two gold stripes on the epaulets, he is an officer holding the rank of a captain. But if that’s the case, then the red sash he’s wearing makes no sense, because it’s only worn by senior non-commissioned officers in the infantry regiments: sergeants and the warrant officers. And speaking of infantry, let’s move on to guessing his regiment.

The biggest clue is the kilt. Only 16 regiments in the Canadian Army have kilts as part of their full dress uniform: The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada, The Royal Highland Fusiliers of Canada, The Lorne Scots (Peel, Dufferin and Halton Regiment), The Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders, The Nova Scotia Highlanders, The Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa (Duke of Edinburgh’s Own), The Essex and Kent Scottish Regiment, The 48th Highlanders of Canada, The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (Princess Louise’s), The Lake Superior Scottish Regiment, The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada, The Calgary Highlanders, The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, The Canadian Scottish Regiment (Princess Mary’s), The Irish Regiment of Canada, and The Toronto Scottish Regiment (Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s Own). Only three of them, however, wear a hat like the one in the picture: a Glengarry cap with a red and white diced border. Of those three, the Calgary Highlanders only wear the Glengarry with a red coat, and the tartan of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders is blue and green, with no red. Therefore, by a process of elimination, the soldier is a member of the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders, an infantry regiment of the 4th Canadian Division, which wears a Glengarry with a red and white border (although they do not have a white hackle in the cap as shown here), a green coatee, and a red, blue and green tartan kilt. Which, considering that this event is taking place in Vancouver, and the SDGH is headquartered in Cornwall, Ontario, on the other side of the country, is a little odd.

Assuming he is a member of the SDGH, we can pick apart the finer details of his uniform. His cap badge ought to look like a silver saltire (X-shaped cross) behind a green circle – the regiment’s badge. It should match the sporran badge, and the collar badges too, although the current collar badges look a bit like the badge of the Royal Canadian Infantry Corps, which would also be acceptable to use.

We can dismiss his four medals out of hand as being completely fabricated: none of them match up to any medal issued to the Canadian Forces, especially the two on the right, as no medal ribbon has horizontal stripes, since they’d be difficult to represent on ribbon bars.

Now, the second one:

First, his service branch, which is a bit of a mystery. Usually this can be easily divined by the colour of the uniform, but his uniform isn’t blue enough for him to be in the Air Force, and not green enough for the Army. More on this later.

Next, there is the matter of his rank. The epaulets are fully blank, which are only worn by newly recruited privates, but the thin gold stripe on his sleeve is the mark of an officer cadet. Both make sense, since they’d both be ranks taking the Oath of Loyalty.

Then there is his regiment. The key here is the beret. The only members of the Forces who wear maroon berets are members of the Army who are trained as paratroopers; therefore, the man is in the Army.

There are seven regiments in the Canadian Army with paratrooper battalions: The Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, 2 Combat Engineer Regiment, 5 Combat Engineer Regiment, The Royal Canadian Regiment, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, The Royal 22e Régiment, and The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada. Of these, only the Corps of Royal Canadian Engineers have a cap badge with a similar colour scheme to the one here (red ringed with gold), so, since the man is taking the oath in English, and 5 Combat Engineer Regiment is mostly French, the soldier is likely from the 2 Combat Engineer Regiment, likely a long-time NCO (judging from the paratrooper designation and the medals, which are also fabricated like the last ones) just now being commissioned as an officer in the Army. If that’s the case, then he should be wearing Engineer’s collar badges, which are smaller versions of his cap badge, instead of what appear to be Infantry collar badges – which are crooked, on top of that.

While I’m on the subject of this picture, you’ll notice that the RCMP officer has two stripes on his epaulets. Those ought to be chevrons, not stripes, and two would indicate that he is a Corporal. The star on his sleeve is for 5 years of good service, and the cross below it looks to be the award for marksmanship with rifles.

Much more problematic is the judge’s robes. Firstly, his barrister’s tabs look like they were tied around his neck like a cravat, where in fact the tabs are a single strip of fabric folded over, with a string attached to the fold so they can be tied around the back like a bib. Secondly, his medal’s ribbon most closely resembles that of a Member of the Order of Canada, but lacking the unique “snowflake” design of the medal. But perhaps most grievously, no Canadian judge wears a blue sash. Most judges’ sashes are red, although Ontario justices of the peace and Nova Scotia Family Court judges wear green sashes, and sashes of Nova Scotia Court of Appeal and Provincial Court judges are black. Robes with blue edging are worn by provincial court judges in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick.

Almost all militaries in the world have two types of ranks: the lower ranks, which compose most of the fighting force, and higher-ranking officers, who are usually better educated, better paid, and hold command over the lower ranks.

In Commonwealth countries, these two sets are also referred to as “Non-Commissioned” and “Commissioned”. This is because every officer in the Forces is given a “commission”, a very large and formal document, signed by the Governor General, appointing the person to serve under the Crown and giving that person permission to command lower-ranking soldiers.

Traditionally, these two rank structures in the Canadian military are subdivided in two: the lower ranks have Non-Commissioned Members (NCMs) and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs), while the upper ranks have Commissioned Officers and General Officers (in the Army and Air Force) or Flag Officers (in the Navy).

Let’s look at each of these four subsections individually.

Non-Commissioned Members (NCMs):

• In most of the Army, NCMs are ranked as Private, which is subdivided into Private (Recruit), Private (Basic) and Private (Trained), which is reached after about 2.5 years of service.

A number of sections of the Army use special names instead of Private: the rank of Gunner is used in the Artillery, Trooper in the Armoured Corps, Sapper in the Engineers, Signalman in the Signal Corps and Craftsman in the Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. In the Infantry, Fusilier is used in the fusiliers regiments, Rifleman in the rifles regiments and Guardsman in the guards regiments.

In Canada, Private is abbreviated as Pte.; Pvt. is only correct in America.

• In the Navy, NCMs are divided into the ranks of Ordinary Seaman (the lowest rank in the Navy) and Able Seaman (which is earned after completing basic training and thirty months of service).

• Before 1968, NCMs in the Air Force held the rank of Aircraftman. They became Privates in 1968, when all the Air Force’s ranks were changes to be the same as Army ranks. Starting in 2015, the rank will be changed to Aviator.

(Between 1939 and 1945, there had also been a Warrant Officer Class III.)

During the Unification, the ranks of Lance Corporal and Staff Sergeant were dropped and an extra warrant officer rank was added; the warrant officer ranks were re-named Warrant Officer, Master Warrant Officer and Chief Warrant Officer.

To make up for the number of lance corporals being suddenly promoted to corporal, the Army appointed a number of senior corporals to the title of Master Corporal. Many sources – including official ones – treat Master Corporal as a rank, even though it is technically an appointment and not a rank.

In the Artillery, Bombardier and Master Bombardier are used instead of Corporal and Master Corporal, and in the guards regiments of the Infantry, Warrant Officers are known as Colour Sergeants.

A photochrome of Lord Dundonald, the last officer of the British Army to command the Canadian Militia.

Until 1875 the army in Canada was the British Army. In 1875, the domestic army was reorganized as the Canadian Militia, and an officer of the British Army held command as General Officer Commanding the Canadian Militia. This stood until 1904, when the Canadian Militia became commanded by a Canadian officer known as the Chief of the General Staff from 1904 to 1964, except for a period of time between 1919 and 1920 when he was called the Inspector-General and Military Counsellor. The Militia was renamed the Canadian Army in 1940. After unification the Army leader was Commander of Mobile Command from 1964 to 1993, Chief of the Land Staff from 1993 to 2011 and the Chief of the Army Staff and Commander of the Canadian Army since 2011.

The Chief of Defence Staff is the single commanding officer of the Canadian Forces, the Canadian version of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The post was created in 1964 when the Army, Navy and Air Force were amalgamated. The CDS is also the head of the Armed Forces Council and Principal Commander of the Order of Military Merit.

The Chiefs of Defence Staff (and their main regiments or posts before being appointed to high command) have been:

The Judge Advocate General is the officer in the Canadian Forces in charge of all the military’s legal affairs, and a member of the Armed Forces Council. Despite the name, the Judge Advocate General (JAG) isn’t a judge; he (or she) is more like an Attorney-General. The Canadian Army has had a JAG since 1911.

In the 1960s, Canada merged its army, navy, and air force into one body, the Canadian Forces. In doing so, it had to merge together a lot of redundant jobs across the three services: three signal corps, three sets of chaplains, three sets of military police, and so forth. To deal with this, in 1968 the Forces established Personnel Branches: job categories to which everyone in the Forces up to the rank of Colonel (or Captain, in the Navy) is assigned.

A lot of the more specialized positions in the Forces, like the Dental Corps or the Legal Branch, treat their branch like a regiment: each branch has an official cap badge and marching song, and hold over traditions from before unification.

In order of precedence, the Canadian Forces Personnel Branches are:

The Naval Operations Branch (sailors)

The Royal Canadian Armoured Corps (soldiers in tanks)

The Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery (soldiers with cannons)

The Canadian Military Engineers (military Public Works, land surveyors, and fire & rescue services)

The Communications and Electronics Branch (signal corps and tech support)

The Armed Forces Council (a.k.a. the Defence Staff) is the official assemblage of top military brass who call the shots in Canada’s military. It is the equivalent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in America.